[3.10] Divine Flesh, Toxic Blood - Poison BLADE VORTEX Pathfinder - Fast and Tanky! | 3M-5M+ sDPS

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• Introduction
• Explanation of Mechanics
• Passive Tree
• Gem Links
• Leveling Guide
• Gear

• Over-capped on all Elemental and Chaos Resistances (78%-90%)
• Immune to Elemental Ailments and Poison, 88+% resistance to Bleed
• At least 50% of Physical Damage taken as Elemental
• 50% of Elemental taken as Chaos
• 20,000+ Evasion with Jade Flask active
• Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics for 40% attack dodge and 30% spell dodge
• Elusive buff (additional 15% chance to dodge)
• Fortify for 20% less damage taken from hits
• CWDT Steelskin to absorb 1000+ damage, with extra duration
• Nearby enemies slowed with Temporal Chains
• 5000+ base HP, depending on gear.

Passive Tree: Level 90

Ascendancy Choices

This build uses Pathfinder for the great flask effects, extra poison, and reduced elemental ailments and damage taken.

Recommended Order:
1. Nature's Reprisal. Poisoning nearby enemies gives effectively more AOE and better clear.
2. Master Toxicist for a big damage increase.
3. Nature's Boon lets us keep up flasks constantly even in boss fights, and take less damage.
4. Master Alchemist for immunity to elemental ailments.

Acts 1 to 5

Take Caustic Arrow after Hillock, use that until the end of Act 1 when Toxic Rain (and Blade Vortex) become available.

A1 Links: Caustic Arrow - Mirage Archer - Void Manipulation

A2-A4 Links: Toxic Rain - Mirage Archer - Vicious Projectiles - Lesser Poison Void Manipulation

In Act 2 we get Herald of Agony and can start using it.

Act 3 take Despair Curse and buy Malevolence Aura to improve DPS. Switch in Poison for Lesser Poison when you get it.

In Act 4 we get Unleash which makes Blade Vortex feel much better to play. After taking the first ascendancy points it's feasible to switch into using BV, or just continue with Toxic Rain. I'd recommend continuing to use Toxic Rain at least until completing the first labyrinth.

Suggested Passive Tree at end of Act 5

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Daedalu5 wrote:

Nice build bro! How do you deal with cast cost of BV & mana sustain? Also life sustain? I don't think i spotted any LGO Spell Hit. Does phy leech work?

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Beskaius wrote:

trying build, so the rotation is bv wait for 10 stack run to mobs click bearer then phase run? (to have a farrul fur is a wrong way?)
anoint Whispers of Doom for what other curse?

"

MoLoK13 wrote:

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Immortal Pathfinder Guide -- Contents

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• Introduction
• Explanation of Mechanics
• Passive Tree
• Gem Links
• Leveling Guide
• Gear

Click Here for Video Guide and gameplay showcase!

Introduction

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This is a Blade Vortex Poison build with many stacked defensive layers.

We use The Golden Rule to reflect poison onto ourself and max out chaos resistance, and Apep's Supremacy to even further overcap our resistances. Then we convert physical damage taken to elemental, and elemental to chaos to benefit from as much damage reduction as possible.

Defensive Layers:

• Over-capped on all Elemental and Chaos Resistances (78%-90%)
• Immune to Elemental Ailments and Poison, 88+% resistance to Bleed
• At least 50% of Physical Damage taken as Elemental
• 50% of Elemental taken as Chaos
• 20,000+ Evasion with Jade Flask active
• Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics for 40% attack dodge and 30% spell dodge
• Elusive buff (additional 15% chance to dodge)
• Fortify for 20% less damage taken from hits
• CWDT Steelskin to absorb 1000+ damage, with extra duration
• Nearby enemies slowed with Temporal Chains
• 5000+ base HP, depending on gear.

Pros and Cons

+ Great clear speed, fantastic for delve and mapping!
+ Very high dodge chance and damage reduction from all elements.
+ Constant flask uptime, increased flask effect and duration.

- Not a budget build - approximately 10-20ex investment needed to function well.
- Gearing is inflexible due to several required uniques.
- Bossing DPS is not as high as Assassin version.

Core Defensive Items

The Golden Rule: causes us to poison ourself whenever we poison an enemy, and gain chaos resistance based on how many poisons are on us.

Apep's Supremacy: poisons on us last longer, and we get +3% to all maximum resistances while poisoned. Also, bleed is taken as chaos damage (which we become nearly immune to).

Some method to be unaffected by poison: this can be from Maw of Conquest, the Antivenom notable from a cluster jewel, or a Malevolence Watcher's Eye. (Note that the Soul of Shakari pantheon will not work, because "immune" to poison means we can't poison ourself!)

Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel with the name Xibaqua, for the Divine Flesh keystone:
All Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield
50% of Elemental Damage taken as Chaos Damage
+10% to maximum Chaos Resistance

With this plus Apep's Supremacy, we have 88% Chaos Resistance. The "downside" of making damage bypass ES means we have permanent 50% stun avoidance, as we always have energy shield!

Lightning Coil, to have 30% of physical damage taken as lightning, and the Taste of Hate Sapphire Flask for 20% physical damage taken as cold (and 20% less cold damage taken) during flask effect. More "damage taken as..." can come from a helmet or a Watcher's Eye Jewel.

Understanding 'Damage Taken As...'

We're converting incoming damage of both the physical and elemental forms. This moves damage from types we resist less to types we resist more.

As an example, suppose there's an incoming hit of 1000 Fire Damage. A normal build with 75% fire resistance would take 250 damage.

For us: Divine Flesh converts 50% of that fire damage to chaos, which we have 88% resistance to, and the rest is applied as fire, which we also resist.

We take: (500)*(0.12) = 60 chaos damage
and (500)*(0.22) = 110 fire, reduced by Pathfinder Ascendancy another 6%, to 103.

So instead of 250 fire damage, we take 163, or about 35% less damage compared to a normal build!

We are also converting physical damage to elemental using Lightning Coil and Taste of Hate, so we can do those examples too.

1000 physical damage against zero armor = 1,000 damage taken.

With conversion: 30% Converted to Lightning, where we have 82% resistance.
20% Converted to Cold, where we have 79% resistance.

Damage Taken: 500 physical
(300)*(0.18)*(0.94) = 51 lightning damage
(200)*(0.21)*(0.94) = 39 cold damage
Total damage taken = 590, or 41% less due to conversion.

And this gets better with higher amounts converted with Watcher's Eye or Helmet mods, up to almost 50% physical damage reduction!

(However, note that "taken as..." Conversion can only happen once - it does not go Phys -> Elemental -> Chaos, sadly).

Passive Tree

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POB: https://pastebin.com/FL5MSCGm (Level 89)

Shaper DPS:
- 3.3M Blade Vortex
- 2.2M Vaal Blade Vortex
- 70k Herald of Agony Crawler
- 120k/sec Plague Bearer

Passive Tree: Level 90

Ascendancy Choices

This build uses Pathfinder for the great flask effects, extra poison, and reduced elemental ailments and damage taken.

Recommended Order:
1. Nature's Reprisal. Poisoning nearby enemies gives effectively more AOE and better clear.
2. Master Toxicist for a big damage increase.
3. Nature's Boon lets us keep up flasks constantly even in boss fights, and take less damage.
4. Master Alchemist for immunity to elemental ailments.

Bandits and Pantheon

Kill all the Bandits for Skill Points.

Major God: Arakaali for increased life recovery when DOT stops (this is active from Coralito's Flask).
Minor God: Garukhan for extra evade chance after being hit, and movement speed.
DO NOT pick Shakari! It will prevent The Golden Rule interaction from working.

Cluster Jewels

This build doesn't depend on cluster jewels, but there are a few that are very efficient to use if available.
- Grim Oath: Gain 10% of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage
- Force Multiplier: 5% chance to deal Double Damage; 25% increased Physical Damage
- Overwhelming Malice: 10% chance to gain Unholy Might for 4 seconds on Critical Strike
- Septic Spells: 8% increased Cast Speed; Spell Skills have +10% to Damage over Time Multiplier for Poison; 20% chance to Poison on Hit with Spell Damage
- Disease Vector: Enemies Poisoned by you cannot Regenerate Life; +10% to Damage over Time Multiplier for Poison while wielding a Claw or Dagger.
- No Witnesses: 10% chance to gain Elusive on Kill; 25% increased Elusive Effect.
Last one is highly recommended, otherwise you need to take Withering Step Support to gain Elusive.

Any other Chaos DOT or poison notables are also nice to have. We can scale off physical, poison, or chaos damage - HOWEVER, spell damage and area damage do next to nothing.

Gem Links

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Damage:
Vaal Blade Vortex
- Unleash
- Poison
- Vile Toxins
- Unbound Ailments
- Deadly Ailments.
(Switch in Awakened versions as budget allows)

Boss DPS:
Wither - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems

Auras:
Malevolence - Purity of Lightning - Herald of Agony - Enlighten.
If lacking a leveled Enlighten, the Charisma passive nodes are a substitute.

Movement:
Whirling Blades - Blood Magic - Fortify - Faster Attacks.
Dash can swap in for Faster Attacks if desired for utility.

Curse:
Blasphemy - Temporal Chains.
Made possible by Solstice Vigil. Use Despair aura instead if using Impresence.

Utility /Speed / Defense:
- Plague Bearer - Increased AOE or Empower (Support gems are optional)
- Phase Run (Helpful but not essential)
- Cast When Damage taken (Level 8) - Steelskin (Level 14)

Phase Run/Plague Bearer Combo

a.k.a. the Crop-Duster?

Phase Run: makes you faster, harder to detect, and grants Phasing, letting you pass through enemies. Performing any skill replaces this buff with one that boosts melee physical damage of skills you use yourself; Base duration is 1.80 seconds; increased Movement Speed; 50% reduced Visibility to Enemies.

Plague Bearer: While Infecting, deals Chaos Damage per second equal to 12% of the Plague Value when Infecting began, and loses Plague Value at the same rate.

Both of these skills are instant to activate.

Using any skill after Phase Run will dispel its buff effect. However, if we punch Plague Bearer immediately before, we can use Phase Run to sprint through packs of mobs and kill them all without needing another skill for several seconds.

Set up your hotkeys so that it's easy to press Plague Bearer >> Phase Run right after, and it massively boosts clearing speed!

Brief Leveling Guide

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Leveling with Blade Vortex is awkward, so I'd suggest Toxic Rain to clear the first few acts.

Acts 1 to 5

Take Caustic Arrow after Hillock, use that until the end of Act 1 when Toxic Rain (and Blade Vortex) become available.

A1 Links: Caustic Arrow - Mirage Archer - Void Manipulation

A2-A4 Links: Toxic Rain - Mirage Archer - Vicious Projectiles - Lesser Poison Void Manipulation

In Act 2 we get Herald of Agony and can start using it.

Act 3 take Despair Curse and buy Malevolence Aura to improve DPS. Switch in Poison for Lesser Poison when you get it.

In Act 4 we get Unleash which makes Blade Vortex feel much better to play. After taking the first ascendancy points it's feasible to switch into using BV, or just continue with Toxic Rain. I'd recommend continuing to use Toxic Rain at least until completing the first labyrinth.

Suggested Passive Tree at end of Act 5

Acts 6 to 10

Level requirements for various important gear upgrades:
Level 50 - The Embalmer Gloves
Level 52 - Circle of Nostalgia
Level 60 - Large Cluster Jewel
Level 60 - Lightning Coil (have to wait for a leveled Purity of Lightning before this is realistic to use)
Level 62 - Cold Iron Point, Apep's Supremacy (gives a payoff to start using The Golden Rule)
Level 64 - Solstice Vigil

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Continues...